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CMA Capitol Insight: 'Tis the Season

January 02, 2012

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CMA Capitol Insight is a biweekly column by veteran journalist Greg Lucas, reporting on the inner workings of the state Legislature.

‘Tis the Season…

For new laws to take effect. Hundreds of pieces of legislation aimed at making California better enter the code books today. Twenty years ago or so, the late Gil Ferguson, an Orange County GOP Assemblyman who fought at Tarawa in World War II, would routinely rise and decry the proliferation of what he branded “government nannyism” legislation. Requiring children aged four or under to wear a lifejacket on a boat, for example. The most flagrant example of this government overreaching – at least in the minds of Ferguson and his fellow Republicans – were efforts to require motorcyclists to wear helmets. It was of no consequence to those arguing against the modest restriction that unfettered freedom to ride without a helmet led to a higher incidence of fatal accidents and head trauma, both a large drain on constrained public coffers. Opponents lost that fight.

Whirling Like a Dervish…

Might be what Ferguson is doing in his grave based on this year’s crop of new laws. Tanning booths are now off limits to those under 18. Shark fin soup is off the menu at the state’s Chinese restaurants, although fins bought before January 1 can be sold – and eaten – through the end of 2012. Nothing containing dextromethorphan can be sold to minors. In very high doses, the cough suppressant can cause hallucinatory experiences. Getting high on it is sometimes called “robo-tripping,” after Robitussin. Children 8 years of age and 4 foot, 9 inches or shorter must ride in a booster seat. The previous rule was kids up to 6 years of age and 60 pounds. One can easily visualize Ferguson positing that if the legislative zeal to tell Californians what’s good for them isn’t checked, 120-pound 12-year-olds will be crammed onto and lashed into the same booster seats.

More than Meets the Eye

As with magic, sometimes things at the Capitol aren’t what they seem – or what they claim to be. A new law that’s been kicking around the Legislature for several years now prevents alcohol from being purchased at self-checkout stands. Cigarettes and spray paint are already prohibited. Supporters said the aim was to curtail the ability of minors to purchase booze. Although one of the bill’s sponsors is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the measure is the handiwork of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents, among others, grocery store clerks. The union has been trying to organize workers at the 127 California stores operated by non-union grocery chain Fresh & Easy. The chain, whose primary mode of checkout is automated kiosks, accused the union of using the legislation to pressure it into signing a contract. When he vetoed a similar bill last year, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger noted: “It is unclear what problem this bill seeks to address.”

Better Late than Never

A new law signed in 2010 takes effect this year. It ramps up the age to receive foster care aide from 18 to 21, one additional year each year for three years. Foster care is arguably California’s biggest public policy failure. Kids are taken from their homes because of neglect or abuse and the state becomes their parent. Except, unlike nearly all other parents, the state cancels assistance and boots the kid out at age 18 – somewhere around 4,000 of them each year. This is called “emancipation.” Former foster kids have a higher chance of becoming homeless, becoming addicted or becoming a criminal. A study five years ago found 70 percent of state prison inmates had intersected with the foster care system at least at one point. Advocates say boosting the eligibility age will give former foster kids a chance to, at a minimum, complete high school – most are behind academically because they’ve been shunted from one home to another. The extra years also give the kids time to mature and pursue some type of higher education. The federal government passed legislation in 2008 allowing states to increase eligibility from 18 to 21 years of age. California is one of the first states to do so.

An Odd Snippet of California History

Bubonic plague – the “Black Death” – conjures visions of the Middle Ages with children singing “ring-around-the-rosy” as they dance around the garish flames of mass funeral pyres. How about San Francisco 101 years ago? There was an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900 that remained uneradicated until 1904. In part that’s because the governor – Henry T. Gage – went to great lengths to deny there was such an outbreak, even claiming the federal medical officer, Dr. Joseph Kinyuon, was injecting cadavers to make it appear they died of plague. Quarantine, after all, is bad for California business. The antipathy toward Kinyuon from the Republican governor and others was enough to drive him to carry a gun and seek police bodyguards. Here’s how it happened: The Australia arrived in San Francisco from Hong Kong in the summer of 1899 with two cases of plague onboard. Although no passengers were sick, quarantine was ordered for the vessel at Angel Island. Kinyuon was stationed there with the Marine Hospital Service, the progenitor of the National Institutes of Health. A search of the Australia found 11 stowaways. Two were missing the next day. Their bodies, containing the plague bacilli, were eventually recovered from the bay. There was no immediate outbreak in the city, but the ship’s rats likely were the cause of the epidemic that broke out nine months later in the warren-like slums of Chinatown. Steps were taken to quarantine Chinatown but the Chinese and the city’s business leaders objected. The quarantine was lifted but house-to-house searches uncovered more plague victims. By 1904 – despite Governor Gage’s steadfast refusal to acknowledge it – the plague had killed 122 Californians, all but a handful in San Francisco.

Paging Dr. Pardee, Dr. George Pardee

Gage, like most state politicians of the day, was controlled by Southern Pacific Railroad. But a wing of the Republican Party, the so-called Reform Republicans – the genesis of the Progressive Party that created the initiative process to end Southern Pacific’s political stranglehold by letting Californians go directly to the ballot – forced a deadlock at the 1904 Republican convention, causing Southern Pacific to abandon Gage and, as a compromise, support George Pardee for governor. Pardee had been a student at the Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, later the Stanford School of Medicine. Shortly after his inauguration, the Oakland native immediately authorized the proper public health steps be taken by state, local and federal authorities to eradicate the plague, swiftly ending the mounting calls for a nationwide boycott of California products.

“Happy New Year – And May God Have Mercy on Us All”

This was the standard greeting of a former member of the Capitol Press Corps around this time of year because within a few weeks the proposed budget will be presented and lawmakers will start introducing more pieces of legislation. The Legislative Analyst says there is a $13 billion gap between spending commitments and revenues that must be closed. Governor Jerry Brown says it’s closer to $11 billion. His spending plan will be premised on voters approving a five-year increase in state income taxes for higher earners and a 0.5 percent boost in the sales tax, which all Californians would pay, to fill $7 billion of the hole. If voters don’t go along, the entire $11 billion would need to be erased through cuts. Here’s where most of the state’s money is spent: Public schools, health care for the poor, human services, universities, community colleges and prisons. The rest is most chump change. So, all in all, that’s a fairly apropos salutation.